Personal Narrative: Becoming A Ball Dancer

On April 13th, I attended San Francisco Ballet’s Program 07, Made For San Francisco. The San Francisco Ballet is notorious for their classical full length ballet productions, but let me tell you, they are equally as amazing in a more contemporary setting. This specific triple bill showcase was made of Trio, Ghost In The Machine, and Within The Golden Hour. The first piece was choreographed by Helgi Tomasson, the company’s own artistic director, and is world renowned classical ballet dancer of his generation. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence, was played by the orchestra and the notes of the music carried each dancer across the stage. It blended so well with the dancing, it seemed as if it were made for the movements. Crisp yet

    My interest and passion for dance all started when I was in the 8th grade, honestly the only reason why I had auditioned was because my best friend did not want to do it alone, so as a supportive

Dance has influenced my life in many ways, but one experience I will never forget is when I earned Senior Feature Dancer. As a dancer, a person, and the woman I am becoming dance has always been so important to me. It immediately caught my attention because it was my escape and my happy place. My passion for the sport is what gave me motivation to do better and gain confidence that I lacked. I was able to make friends who would last me a lifetime.

I danced for 12 years at a professional ballet company. Five of those years, I trained under the instruction of a director named Elie. He yelled incessantly, was bad-tempered, and could make a room full of people cry faster than you would ever think possible. However, despite his shortcomings, Elie was a brilliant instructor.

I’m a ballet dancer at Williston School of Dance. it’s my biggest passion in life. However when I first started I hated it so much! I’ve always been a quitter, I’ve tried so many different hobbies and quit all of them : piano, violin, Archery, guitar, sewing, flute, jewelry making and knitting, as you can see from my list I was a huge quitter, as soon as something got hard I would give up.

"Everybody be warmed up and ready by 3:20!" My dance teacher yells to the Camden Hills Regional High School's, Strom Auditorium stage into the Black Box. I quickly slipped on my dance shorts from Pink, and a white Studio Red tank top, and then lastly my ballet slippers. I sat on the ground of the senior company dressing room, along side my friend Emily, as we started massaging our feet, getting the blood flowing to our muscles.

The dancer awoke in a bed covered with unironed clothes and mismatching sheets. Even though the sheets were mismatching they still looked fine. It was 7 in the morning and Sophie had to get up and start packing for a tour around Australia that her mum wants her to go on. It was a nice bright and sunny day she felt like it was last Australia day with no wind and the sun bright up in the sky, all she wanted to do was go outside and play with her friends. Her mum called out for her, “Sophie time to wake up and start packing”

This past learning period I have been doing alot of ballet with children. I recently taught a level two ballet class and showed them some of what I will be dancing in the upcoming performance. The children were about 5-8 years old and mostly girls. I had alot of fun teaching them how to do new steps they had never done before and seeing their reactions to me doing things that seem xxxx simple to me. They were so impressed and showed such awe and wonderment that it warmed my heart. In addition, I later went to the Tutu School, a ballet academy specializing in younger dancers. Unlike my school's level two class, the age range was younger as most of the kids were 3-5 years old. Dancers from my ballet school and I performed an exerpt from the

Beginning this class I had taken some ballet before and had a good understanding of the basics even if I was not totally comfortable doing them. However, I still struggled with turning out at the hips, balancing on relevé, maintaining por de bra in an exercise, tilting my head when needed, keeping my neck long, engaging my core (especially when balancing), and using my plie in almost everything. While I was comfortable doing several other things, I know that ballet requires everything to be specifically engaged and that I could not slack in any part of my technique. Things like tilting my head, maintaining por de bra, and keeping my neck long, I am still getting used to but they are becoming more natural as I repeat them each week. It really

Ever since I was in diapers my mom has taken me to gymnastics class. I have been through all of the stages in gymnastics, beginning in mommy and me classes and excelling all the way to level ten gymnastics. By that time my whole life revolved around gymnastics, and a college scholarship was the goal. My whole life changed September of 2013.

Leading a team of teenage girls is most definitely not effortless, but it is something that I’ve done with pride for the past three years. When I entered high school, I was beyond eager to join the dance team. Unfortunately, it was not even the slightest of what I had expected it to be. We rarely performed and when we did, the feeling that I obtained exceeded embarrassment. I have danced since I was three years old, but it was so terribly draining, and not even in a physical way, that I considered quitting the team. At the end of the season my freshman year, though, the coach informed us that she was quitting and offered me the captain position for the following year. So with that, I decided to stay on the team. I was determined to make my

The fastest way for a performer’s career to end is with an unexpected injury. My freshman year I suffered patella luxation, more commonly known as the dislocation of the kneecap. I was in a full leg brace for a month and a half, and then participated in physical therapy over summer break until I was cleared to return to dance for my sophomore year. The time I had to spend recuperating forced me to explore other pathways associated with my art.

For the first time, I dreaded going to ballet class, and tried to get out of it as much as possible. That worked for the first couple weeks telling my mom I had an overload of homework, but soon she started getting suspicious. She told me if I didn’t go to class, she would pull me out of dance all together. This was a wake up call. I definitely did not want to give up on this sport because it had been with me my entire life. So, the next week I walked into class with an open mindset. Surprisingly, the class went quite well! During the class, my teacher told us the theme of our recital dance. This year was going to be variation of Swan Lake. I was thrilled! I always dreamed of dancing in this classical and memorable ballet. I knew there was only going to be a few select leads, and if I wanted to be one of those girls, I needed to get over my plateau. So, at every opportunity I practiced strengthen my pointe work, stretching while doing homework, and keeping track of my corrections from class. Hours upon hours, through the bruises, blood, and blisters I dedicated my time to dance. My classes were finally going well, and I felt as if I rose out of my plateau stronger than the girl I was before.

Dance has been apart of my life ever since I can remember. When I was young, before I officially started my dance training, I was always up on my feet and moving. No matter what hobby I took interest in (whether it was cheerleading, musical theatre, or jump rope), I would always find a way to choreograph little routines a show them to my friends and family. Even when my parents tried to put me in sports, I would do cartwheels and dance on the playing fields, completely oblivious to what was going on during the games. When I look back at how I started my dance training, I just smile and laugh because I was so naïve and unaware that it would become such a huge part of my life. In 5th grade I was put into my first dance class as a hobby. It happened because I watched the Disney Channel movie High School Musical and immediately fell in love with it. I showed the movie to my parents and told them, “This is what I want to do.” At the time I thought I excelled in both signing and acting and that all I needed were dance classes. So in 4th grade I was put into my first dance class and I began to scratch the surface of the basics of dance. What I didn’t know then is that dance would slowly but surely influence my entire life and

Later, some of my teammates left the studio. I was working really hard in ballet and I finally started getting leveled up to Ballet 3. I was 10 years old when I moved up to Ballet 3. Ballet started getting harder and new people came and old team mates left.